| [Thread Prev] | [Thread Next] | [Thread Index] | [Date Prev] | [Date Next] | [Date Index] |
|
I understand your angst, Andrew. I had similar experiences
in this organisation some years ago. The government had just brought in what is
called a ‘capital use charge’ which is mostly designed to stop government
organisations building up a collection of obsolescent equipment, by making them
pay a pro-rata charge for its depreciation. In the initial stages the suits
were running about like headless chooks, and any mention of the dollar value of
our collections had them leaping about with their fingers in their ears humming
loudly. Despite being told by people in the know that these charges did not
apply to ‘heritage items’, they found this difficult to believe for
some reason. This was demonstrated clearly when the organisation was offered,
free (except for the $40 cost of valuation) a 56 kg piece of the Henbury meteorite. At that time I looked after the all the palaeo and mineral collections in this place. I thought
this was a wonderful opportunity, as a 56 kg slab of iron is not something that
you can walk out with, so we could have had it on display, so that our numerous
visiting schoolkids could have actually touched a meteorite (all the rest are
too small and are behind glass), so I made the mistake of asking permission of
the hierarchy. Unfortunately the headless chooks prevailed and the opportunity
was missed. On a different tack, it is important that the assorted
universities and other organisations realise that their collections are
important heritage collections and sticking a dollar value on them is a way,
albeit simplistic, of demonstrating that these are valuable collections. Our Commonwealth Palaeontological Collection (CPC, currently
comprising 37,415 type and otherwise published specimens) is one of the largest
in Australia and is of course undervalued in this organisation, such that I and
I alone am allowed only to spend about 10% of my time looking after the
collection (accessions, loans, visitors etc. etc.). The way I have tried to inculcate
an appreciation of its value is to keep explaining how palaeontology works (not
an easy thing to do to a geophysicist or geochemist) and to wave the ‘international
convention’ aspects of the operation of the ICZN and ICBN. This coupled
with the fact that the CPC was originally set up by a federal government
decision in the 1920s, has seen me make some headway recently. Hopefully this
will continue John ----------------------------------------------------------------- Petroleum and Marine Division GEOSCIENCE Street Address: ABN 80 091 799 039 |
Partial index: